brickclubfandomcom-20200213-history
1.4.1-Columbina
Brick!Club 1.4.1 One Mother meets Another Mother NEW BOOK! NEW HEARTACHE! Also hello little Cosette, it is wonderful but heartbreaking to see you I hope you are all ready for me to talk about how much I love Cosette because hello my other fandom is Disney Princesses of course I love Cosette, I mean, she is actually Cinderella, “They can’t order me to stop dreaming” and so forth, but that is for another chapter. For now, let me just take a moment to be annoyed at the introduction of Mme. Thenardier. (Don’t worry, my determination to love all female characters does not extend this far!) Pilferingapples has already commented on the size issues and I mean, come on, if she had been standing up, Fantine would have realised leaving her kid there was a bad idea because she was really tall? That’s a bit ridiculous, but my personal annoyance is at the “lol ugly women who like bad romances they’re so stupid”, SEE ALSO MOST MEDIA COVERAGE RE 50 SHADES / TWILIGHT. Yes they are awful and promote bad things and so on and so forth, and all attacks on that front I will thoroughly support, but the kind that just goes “''She was a simpering, but masculine creature. Old romances produce that effect when rubbed against the imagination of cook-shop woman''.” make me angry, so ten points from Gryffindor there, Hugo. That said though, he does get those points back with “''As for her toilette, that aerial toilette of muslin and ribbons, which seemed made of mirth, of folly, and of music, full of bells, and perfumed with lilacs had vanished like that beautiful and dazzling hoar-frost which is mistaken for diamonds in the sunlight; it melts and leaves the branch quite black''.” so, you know, he’s breaking even. Hugo’s descriptions of adorable children are half heartbreakingly sweet and half creepy with all these indecently exposed chests and firm legs and edible cheeks please stop. Also with the kids, more potential female friendships that don’t happen ha ha sob. Playing in the dirt with worms bless you you darling children. Back to Fantine, though, who gave up work, presumably when she was pregnant with Cosette, and let Tholomyes provide for her and he drew her up to an awkward half-class and apparently made her think she was too good for trade, but would never bring her up far enough to actually move in his circles, then drops her back down again. And then we get this: She was vaguely conscious that she was on the verge of falling into distress, and of gliding into a worse state. Courage was necessary; she possessed it, and held herself firm. And I mean, wow, I’m sorry can we just all stop for a minute and think about this? It’s kind of easy to knock how tough things were for her here because we all know that they’re about to get a whole lot tougher, but look at her, she has been knocked down hard. The only person in the entire world who has ever cared about her (or so she thought) has dropped her without a second thought, she has no friends, no one who wants to be her friend, no job, a small child - these are not even period concerns, this is no different to what happens today, give or take a tiny bit more sympathy for single mums. She can feel depression coming on, she’s tempted to just give in to despair, but she doesn’t. She does “Right, no work in Paris, then I’ll just go somewhere else” and sells nearly everything she owns, packs up the rest and heads off. I mean, it’s not like she had a whole lot going on for her in Paris but still. She doesn’t do a Valjean, she doesn’t seek revenge, she doesn’t try to repay evil with evil, because she doesn’t give in to any of the darkness inside her. She is crazy tough guys. Maybe you can call it blind optimism if you want, but it is so much more than that, she is so amazing. With that out of my system, one last thing I want to mention - when Valjean visits the Bishop it is all through Providence / lucky coincidences / what have you, between the strange weather that makes him turn back and the Marquise coming out at just the right time and even after he gets there, the halo of moonlight on the Bishop and so forth. We’ve got the same lucky coincidences here, what with Mme. Thenardier sitting down and all, and Fantine thinks this is Providence at work. SO, what’s the go? Fantine thinks she sees it, Valjean just had a bad feeling. Is it because Fantine is looking for it, so she takes anything as a sign? You could argue that neither of them had a brush with Providence and that these are merely the little things that decide fates, a cloudy day here, a woman sitting down there, but you would have to be reading pretty strongly against the text. Is Providence directing Fantine to leave Cosette there so that Valjean can find her because of the important role she will play in his life? If so, that’s kind of a dick move, even if she doesn’t seem to suffer any super lasting damage from her abusive childhood. Commentary Pilferingapples "Dick move, Providence" is going to be my new statement of frustration. And yes, Fantine is HARDCORE. And she’s hardcore because of love, which is definitely a running Thing in this story; love carries a lot of strength, even when people are working with nothing else. I don’t think Fantine can be accused of blind optimism at this point- maybe “desperate hope” but that’s very different— but she does have hope, and she’s still trying, because she’s got Cosette. She’s down and despised, but she her one ‘vanity- and that a sacred one’ and that keeps her looking ahead. OH FANTINE. If only absolutely anyone else had decided to help you out before everything went too far bad!